President Obama 'rolling the dice’ on Syria?

The stakes of the Syria vote couldn’t be higher for President Barack Obama: If Congress doesn’t back him up, his already troubled second term would be dealt another blow in the twin arenas of domestic and foreign politics.

That’s why some Republicans and Democrats think the president risked too much in asking Congress to authorize strikes on Syria that Obama believes are within his power to order unilaterally. And it’s why the White House is going into overdrive this week to try to sway a skeptical Congress into the war column.

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Sunday shows in 90 seconds: Crisis in Syria

Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and other National Security Council members have reached out to individual lawmakers. High-ranking administration officials have been dispatched to give intelligence briefings — Sunday’s classified session in the Capitol, attended by 70 lawmakers, will be followed by another round of conference calls this week. And Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a frequent critic of Obama’s who has argued for robust U.S. intervention in Syria, will meet Obama at the White House on Monday.

It’s a “flood the zone” approach, said one senior administration official familiar with the president’s strategy. The upside to a win: Obama could get some of his juice back, both at home and abroad, and Congress would co-own the fallout if anything goes wrong in Syria.

But some of Obama’s allies say it looks like he’s misread Capitol Hill — badly.

“This could be the biggest miscalculation of his presidency,” a senior House Democrat told POLITICO Sunday. “Not only is his credibility on the line but the country’s credibility is on the line, so he is rolling the dice by taking this to Congress.”

The prospects for passage of Obama’s war resolution are dim. Prominent Democratic allies of the president have said they won’t vote for it in its current form. Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) said Sunday that his aides are working on new language. But even a resolution that circumscribes the president’s authority to strike Syria more than the relatively open-ended version he sent to the Hill Saturday would face a tough vote in both chambers.

Washington Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said in an interview Sunday that he would not characterize how he planned to vote “out of respect” for the president’s ongoing effort to acquire support.

Smith just returned from a trip to the United Arab Emirates and Jordan that included a stop along the Syrian border. While he was there, he said, he sensed deep ambivalence about a strike in Jordan, because “nobody knows” whether it’s better for U.S. allies for America to send cruise missiles into Syria to dissuade further use of chemical weapons in the region or better not to risk retaliatory strikes from Syria, Iran or Hezbollah.

Smith said he would “urge the more cautious approach.”

Part of the problem for the president is that there’s little public appetite for committing the United States to acts of war in Syria. That means it’s a risky proposition for House members, all of whom face re-election in 2014, and the one-third of senators also on the ballot next year. Obama, who used his opposition to the Iraq war to distinguish himself from the Democratic primary field in 2008, knows as well as anyone else how powerful a vote on war can be in politics.

The Washington blame game is already in full swing, with fingers pointing from both ends of Pennsylvania Ave. Shortly after Obama announced his decision on Saturday, senior administration officials insisted going to Congress for a vote was the president’s brainchild. Leaders on the Hill had asked Obama to consult with Congress, but not a single one had suggested that the president ask for a formal authorization, they said.

But by Sunday, with many Democrats questioning the wisdom of his move, a source familiar with the thinking in the White House framed Obama’s decision as accommodating House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

While Boehner had pushed Obama to consult with Congress and to answer a series of questions about his plans for engagement in Syria, he had stopped short of joining the nearly 200 Republican and Democratic House members who signed a pair of letters urging Obama to seek authorization before taking action.

Some of Boehner’s colleagues in both parties read his moves as an indication that he would not stand in the president’s way in launching strikes. But Obama had grown frustrated with both international and domestic leaders who gave him tacit approval but declined to jump to his aid. He was taking all the risk and responsibility for a Syria strike, and he didn’t like it. Members of Congress were playing political games by asking him to consult with them but not taking on the accountability of voting with him or against him.

On Friday night, Obama announced to his staff that he was going to shine a spotlight on them. Rather than calling out orders for a strike, he called for a vote. Some of his allies patted him on the back for what they described as a bold stroke of political brilliance. Republicans said the president was being nakedly political.

“There is no doubt the White House is making political calculations about all of this. If they didn’t think they needed the cover, there’s no way in hell they would be coming to us,” said one senior GOP aide. “Obama can’t stand Congress, and no president thinks there is an actual restraint on their ability to wage war.”

Republicans say it’s Obama who has the most to lose.

“This vote is entirely on the president,” said a leadership aide. “If it fails, it’s on him, not us.”

Behind closed doors, administration officials are making the case that America — read Obama — will look terrible on the international stage if Congress rebuffs him.

Problem is, lawmakers may not really care if Obama looks terrible. From gun control to immigration to fiscal issues, Obama has spent much of the last three years hitting congressional Republicans for blocking or slowing his agenda. Republicans could return the favor simply by playing it straight.

If Obama was trying to jam Boehner, who had clamored for consultation but pointedly declined to take a position on strikes, with a vote that would split the Republican caucus, it hasn’t worked yet.